


The Limits of Reality

by Hezjena2023



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angsty angst is angsty, Character Study, F/M, Happy Ending?, One Shot, Promise!Verse, Sequal, The Consequences of a truthful Crestwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 09:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18808603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hezjena2023/pseuds/Hezjena2023
Summary: There are too many voices echoing around her head, but one of them is screeching so loudly that she cannot drown it out. Repeating the truth over and over.Solas is Fen’Harel.She fights against the fact, rejects the truth placed in front of her nose. It can’t be real. It just can’t, right?The truth hurts.





	The Limits of Reality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fenhello](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenhello/gifts).



> This is a sequel to the fantastically talented Fenhello’s To Show You What You Mean to Me (link below). Which is a heartbreaking beautiful character study set in a world state where Solas didn’t chicken out at Crestwood and actually told Lavellan the truth. I can only hope that I’ve remained true to the spirit of the original, and done it the justice that it deserves. 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/18782533

The light from the waning moons, streamed soft and pale through a stained glass pane in the far corner of the rooms she’d claimed in Skyhold. It felt as though it had been years she’d been back in this room, though in truth it had been weeks. The painfully slow slog back to from Crestwood, had left a single thought rattling around her head.

_ Solas was Fen’Harel _ .

The ancient voices that had clattered and clamoured for attention since she’d drunk from the Well of Sorrows had been strangely quiet on the entire affair. She had asked them countless times in the last few days why none had them had bothered to warn her quite how far she was stepping from the path. None of them had given her a satisfactory answer, and not one, of the utterly useless Elvhen titters had bothered to remark upon the strange similarly between the god they surely once must have known, and the man she’d loved.

It felt like a nightmare, but what else could she have expected from the Bringer of Nightmares?

She stands, and pulls her hair out of her face. He touched it, she should cut it all off, she thinks darkly. His touches, his kisses have stained her skin as surely as that Reddleman had marked the woman he wanted but couldn’t have. A death to weaken the veil, he had said. His fingerprints danced unseen across her skin, the echoes of little touches, memories bubbling, and she found the marks shone as brightly as her vallaslin. They glistened across her skin with pain, fear, regret and pain again.It’s too much, the knowledge is a noose around her neck, tightening with every breath. Choking the very air from her lungs.

_ Solas is Fen’Harel.  _

She leans over her desk. A faded halla skin map is stretched tightly across the desk. Weighted down with tiny Marcher paperweights, that were mostly begged (some borrowed).  

A quiet knock at her door, brought her with surprising force into the present. A worried hand brushed over her outfit. If a few months with Vivienne had taught her anything, looking good was half the battle.

She reached out across the table to take her half empty tea cup. It was fine Orlesian porcelain, but filled with cheap Dalish spirits. The yellow ochre liquid had been a gift from some noble or other, meant to insult her. But instead it reminded her of home, a home that was now forever lost to her.

"Come up!" She called, hating the way her voice shook. She touched the liquid against her lips, anything more than a sip burned ragged lines down her raw throat. She set the teacup back down, no use letting whoever it was see the way her hand shook.

She’d done precisely nothing for the Inquisition since arriving back in Skyhold. At least have the decently to look busy, a little voice inside her head chastised. Which caused her to turn her back agonist the door and trace a light hand across the criss-cross hatching that shows the mountains where Skyhold nestled. He had brought her here, lead the way and let her take all the credit. All the way to Tarailan Telas,  _ Tarasyl’an Te’las,  _ a snarky useless voice in her head corrected her pronunciation.

She heard light footsteps against the stair, and steadied herself against the desk. She hoped it would be Leliana with news on Corypheus’ latest movements, or perhaps Dorian with a bottle of something old, tangy and red.

"May we speak?" Came a soft voice from behind her. One she recognised without having to turn around. Her heart dropped through her chest, across the floor, skittered across the balcony and tumbled the entire way down the mountain side.

_ Fen’Harel was behind her  _ .

The tittering cacophony of ancient voices that had drowned her every waking thought suddenly scattered like frightened birds. So instead, she reached for something older, a warding hand gesture flashing into the air with such a speed, that her fingers snapped audibly with the force. The gesture lived so deep in her psyche, that she could almost be sure she’d learned it before her first word. But her hand had caught, fingertips on ceramic, gripped too hard and as she turned the tea cup shattered to the ground. Her left footwrap was sodden, and the earthy intoxicating smell filled her nose. She watched him glance down, a flicker of uncertainty across his perfect mask. He still looked like Solas, sharp and stark, like cut glass and unmalleable marble.

Uncomfortable silences had been the mark of the last three weeks. All since she’d stumbled blindly out of a cave in Crestwood. Her only thought to be to desperately get away.

"No. You’re not - welcome here." She whispered, tone hard, but it was hardly malice. The fear in her voice, the little crack as she spoke, ripped through him. He’d never meant to hurt her, Cole had warned him to be truthful... but truth was a weapon and honesty was a trick he still hadn’t mastered, and now she couldn’t stand the sight of him, couldn’t look at him. She’d avoided the rotunda as though it contained plague and she’d slipped away from him every chance she’d gotten. He saw her consider running, watched her still the beating adrenaline coursing through her.

It made a certain kind of sense, he knew he had done some terrible things. And shown her terrible things to prove that was the perpetrator of terrible things. But had he done nothing good enough to merit a second thought, had nothing he done since Haven mattered against the little snippets of history, corrupted and distorted - the fragments of fragments the Dalish clung to - the narrative spun out of his control? She’d already known everything she’d need to know to judge him. A bitter taste formed in his mouth, she hadn’t even bothered with the formality of the thing, he hadn’t even gotten the satisfaction of his beautiful enthroned Inquisitor passing down judgement from above. Not that that he was entirely sure that would have been better. But the thing had been taken from him, and it made him want it all the more. 

He wanted to rip down the very stone walls around him, wanted to try correct her misconceptions. His fingers twitched from the sheer damnable outrage, how dare they, they take her from him using nothing more than slanderous rumours.

But then the little voice spoke, the proud, stubborn little voice, he had actually done all those things the Dalish warned of. Maybe the details were off, but the broad strokes painted a perfect picture. What more had he really expected?

He considers why he came, why he bothered to make the short journey to see the woman who wants nothing more to do with him. He’d expected halfway up the stairs to have had a plan in mind, a new course of action. He’d planned to have some semblance of what to say before he knocked on her door. He was never this unprepared, he had speeches rehearsed for every conceivable situation, except this one.

"Vhenan, my love, please." He says softly, and his words startle himself. He realises with an uncertain certainty that he came to beg. Beg forgiveness, beg a chance to go back.

She flinches, takes a step back and slams into the desk. She tries to hide it. He’d go back and never don the wolf pelt, if only she’d stop looking at him like that. Though he knows if he’d never draped himself in the mantle, she wouldn’t even be here. The subtle cruelty of knowing that his every action has brought him here. Brought her here. 

Even now, when all he has done is tear down the very fabric of everything that she thought she knew, she’s still trying to protect him. In some small way, she didn’t want him to see how much he fills her with dread. It surprises him.

And that is something she is very good at, this real, really real, real person, she is good at surprising him. Since they arrived back in Skyhold, he’d expected any moment to be chased out, or found himself at the wrong end of one of the Nightingale’s interrogations. At the very least bound and fed magebane.

He stood, motionless. “I did not want to hurt you," he repeats numbly. But what words can take back the hurt, mend that shattered trust between them. "The Dalish-"

_ Solas was still the same.  _

"Did you just come to tell me what else the Dalish got wrong?" She snapped, but it had no venom. She sagged a little against the desk, defanged, as though all the fight and fear had left her in one instance. "Morrigan was raised by Mythal, who was a terrible mother." She bent suddenly, scooping the shattered pieces of teacup up with fierce short jabs, and dropping them on the desk with a feverish efficiency, "let me guess, can Andruil not aim? Is Dirthamen a gossip? Does June stab himself every time he picks up a chisel?" Her voice drops lower, in a poor imitation, "what is that old Dalish curse?" She stepped forward, the first time even beginning to approach his space, "Fen’Harel ma ghilana. You have mislead me. This -" she waves a hand between them, "isn’t real."

Her words are a weight around his shoulders, and he is drowning under her glare. "It is real, what we had was real." Had, what we had, he says, the dull recognition becoming a dumb acceptance. It was over, but he pleads, he begs, he needs her to know that it was real. It was the one and only fact he needs her to understand, if she believes nothing else. And if she doesn’t. The thought makes him thinks his legs might go out, should he drop to his knees and pray forgiveness? The look on her face gives him his answer, that begging will not help.

So he considers running, there is an eluvian down in the little room off the courtyard. Morrigan’s silly little wards wouldn’t stop him breaking into the network if he really wanted to. And the guards would be easy enough to subdue, but where would he go? Where could he go? Where in all of Thedas would he be able to hide from her dark, accusatory gaze. He couldn’t run, he had to face her. He tried again, "you are-"

She slices a hand through the air, cutting off his words again. "You can’t trick me with your pretty words. I know you."

Sweet talker, she’d called him, a new epithet to add to his collection. And now her words were achingly calm, and precise. Trained daggers to cut right into the heart of him.  

But her words came accompanied by her silence, unlikely bedfellows. She’d kept his secret, kept his Wolf-pelt locked away. Not said a word to anyone, not dared to speak the words that would damn her in the eyes of the Dalish.

She wove a new narrative, turning their trip into simply a bad breakup, her despair into the actions of only a jilted lover. He hadn’t wanted her, she’d told Dorian, that instead he’d been the one to walk away. She told the story loudly in the tavern where everyone could hear. She gotten pitied looks and gossips swirled around her, a little blow to her shining image that was more than a fair price to protect her reputation. The Dread Wolf might have taken her, but he couldn’t keep her, his identity would not consume hers. So she lied, and maybe the Liar before her would forgive her this one corruption.

“And what is it that you think you know?" He cannot stop himself for asking, he wants to kick himself for his stupidly. Why is he goading her?

She remembers the twin wolf statues, worn by rain and wind set out at the outskirts of her clan. Dragged across the land whenever they moved to a new place, her Keeper whispering prayers and promises to what now seems like nothing more than an empty hunk of rock. It was a reminder that Betrayal is always hunting and always hungry. The Feral, terrible Fen’Harel. 

The gods, for all their power should have realised they had a traitor in their midst and she recalls the large statue in the Temple of Mythal, the resting wolf, peaceful in a way that was never again depicted after the fall of Arlathan. The statue that Morrigan had openly insulted, called him a naked Andraste in the middle of a chantry. And Solas hadn’t flinched, hadn’t even seemed to notice. Hadn’t felt any need to defend himself at all.

She feels a fury flare up in her blood, and has enough caution left to not jab her finger into his chest, "you betrayed-"

"I rebelled." He snaps, cutting her off mid-thought with such a fierceness. "The evanuris, the gods that named themselves," he scoffs and glances out of the balcony window and then back to her. He thinks he should try to give her an account of it, try to give her some background to understand his motivations. Try to pick through the tattered stories reworked so many times they are like a patchwork araval sail. The fiction was so much nicer than the fact, and the exaggerations were enough to make Master Tethras blush. "They turned Elvhenan into a festering wound and the people choked from their sickness. I thought if only I could cut out the rot, then the people might thrive."

"We have not." She retorted, as a lone ancient voice told her she was unworthy of being classed among the people. Her arms crossed across her chest, challenging the man before her to object.

He only crumpled, his posture shrank and she watched as the guilt formed a physical weight across his shoulders. More mistakes, miscalculations and regrets. She almost told him it wasn’t his fault, that there had been far too much between the veil going up and now for it to possibly be his fault, but she bit her tongue sharp enough to draw a taste of copper into her mouth. She licked her lip under the intensity of her gaze.

Her bloodstained lips mock him. He thinks of her people, so small, so weak, like children lost in a world far too big for them. Her wide eyes sweep down as she considers her next words, the hint of a smile plays across her mouth, "so you’re telling me you were like a Friend of Red Jenny?" The gentle jibe washes over him, surprisingly sweet and light as Navarran dessert wine.

He finds a little chuckle in his throat, delicate and precious and - "of course not, we were far better organised."

She covers her mouth with her hand as she laughs, she closes her eyes. For that little moment it is as though the dreaming of Crestwood never happened. Then the wave of reality crashes over her and she is shaken awake, she wipes her face with the back of her hand as though trying to rid herself of sleep. "There is one thing more that I know." Eyes locked on his, "no, you’re not - right. No, Fen'Harel can’t be kind, or taste like honey, or feel like home." She paused frowning as though the words had come from her mouth unbidden, but she accepts her words after a moment, as she had always accepted the responsibility for every action she had taken since the very moment she’d decided to take the mountain path to get to the Breach quicker. “So I know this cannot be real."

"It is real."

She looks away.

"Please, let me answer your questions. I suppose you must have many." He feels the little speak of grit forming, the spark of hope that might just become a pearl given enough time. And Cole has told him to be truthful. Maybe if he keeps her talking- 

"Dangerous," she admonishes lightly, "me asking you questions is how this whole mess started." She moves toward him, reaching for the leather cord that dangles a jawbone and used it to pull him gently towards her ending so her palms are splayed out against his chest. He was brave enough to tell her the truth, to show her so there could be no uncertainty. The very least she owes him in return is her truth. Her thumbs grazing the lowest line of his ribs. "I’ll need time," she requests so quietly his ears strain to hear. 

He nods instantly, how could he deny her that? He doesn’t know if he can deny her anything. He has left his clearly marked path, left his duty in the dust on the side of the road. She is the key that changed his world, unlocking new routes. He gently touches her hair and knows that nothing is inevitable.

"I love you," she adds, hoping that it doesn’t sound like a question. 

_ She loves him, whoever he is. _

  
  
  



End file.
